


Not So Oblivious

by shakespeareaddict



Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Me having feels, Musical feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareaddict/pseuds/shakespeareaddict
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maurice had never liked Gaston.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

> Just me having some feels about the musical. Warning for some mild assault and language.

Maurice had never liked Gaston.

It wasn’t anything in particular that Gaston had done. From the moment he’d seen the man, he decided he wouldn’t like him. Some might consider that to be a bit narrow-minded, but he would have learned to dislike him sooner or later anyway. After all, what sort of fool made eyes at a sixteen-year-old girl who’d lost her mother and moved from the city to the country in the space of a month, when he himself was upwards of twenty-five? And what sort of man would then go about courting the object of his affections in such a half-cocked way? Honestly.

People thought of Maurice as unobservant of anything not involving gears and gadgetry, and it was largely true. What they didn’t seem to understand was that he was no stranger to love and its many shades. Maurice had known for some time that Gaston fancied himself in love with Belle, and even as oblivious as he was the inventor knew that that would not have been a happy match, even _if_ his daughter returned the hunter’s affections. They were just too different for it to end well.

Of course, Maurice had thought he had nothing to worry about there; Belle had no interest in Gaston, and Gaston had not asked him about marriage prices. As ridiculous as Gaston was, even he could not be so presumptuous as to ask for a girl’s hand without first consulting her father.

And yet there Gaston was, being entirely too familiar with his girl and so casually asking her to marry him, like this was another one of his hunts and she was particularly stubborn game. Saying it as if he had asked her before—he must have asked after Maurice had set off for the fair. The thought filled him with anger, at the brash man before him, at the Beast, at himself most of all. If only he hadn’t gotten lost in the forest….

No, that wasn’t right. If only he hadn’t proceeded to tell everyone in town about it, and instead went off after Belle discreetly….

What the devil!

Maurice struggled fiercely against the men holding him back as Gaston quite forcefully grabbed his Belle and kissed her. A moment later she pulled away and struck him, the crack heralding an oppressively shocked silence. There was a space of time in which he could have broken free from his unofficial guards if he had not also been frozen in place. His girl had changed, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. ( _At least she didn’t offer herself as a bargaining chip again_ , thought some wry part of him.)

Then the blackguard son of a whore was moving away—“Fine, have it your way. Take the old man!”—and his opportunity was lost. Maurice fought still. If Gaston had been desperate enough to do all of this, what might he be driven to in the future? Maybe he and Belle could run away from this town, to someplace safer for them both. Maybe the Beast would be kinder than Gaston.

“Show me the Beast!”

The crowds’ attention was away from him and focused on the mirror. Maurice had hope for a short time that that would be the end of it. His hope was shot down as accurately as if it were some feathered thing trying to escape the sights of the blackguard when Gaston shouted “I say we kill the Beast!”

He wasn’t particularly disturbed by the words, because if the townspeople could get through the palace doors and to the Beast alive, they would have a hard time of killing him. But the expression on Belle’s face as he said it told the old man all he needed to know. She could not have looked more devastated if the bookshop had burned to the ground, or if her mother had left this world a second time. Already he was certain he would agree with any plan she had to try and stop the growing mob, in the same way he was certain he would take his next breath, and the one after that. He knew love when he saw it; broken hearts were just as noticeable. Gaston had demolished hers, and it was his duty as a father to pick up what pieces he could.

He’d never liked Gaston, that was true. Maurice had never thought he’d be able to hate him.


End file.
